My Pismo suddently won't recognize my External HD!

Hi,
Help! I restarted my Pismo with OS 9.2.2 and I was having problem to get on line, so I restart it. Then the following warning appeared: "This disk is unreadable by this Computer. Do you want to initalize the disk?' And the name of the disk is "Untitled" and Format: Mac OS Standad 111.7 GB.
Before this problem appeared, my external HD was named "Thomas" and 30 GB was used.
So at this point, what can I do? Do I haveto initalize the HD and erase all of my datas or is there something I can do to save my external HD?
Any kind assistance/comments are much appreciated.
Thomas
PowerBook G3 Firewire/Pismo Mac OS X (10.2.x) 384 MB/400 MHZ/120 GB HD

Well, since last time I posted this question. I restarted my Pismo under OS X 10.2.8 with my Internal HD and my external HD was mounted! Then I restarted choosing my External HD under OS X as the Startup Disc and my Pismo restarted normally. Now I am on my External HD with all my datas intact. Nothing seems to have lost. When I went to the Startup Disc option, all four discs were there "Two internal HD under OS 9.2.2 and OS X 10.2.8" and "Two external HD under OS 9.2.2 and OS X 10.2.8".
Does anyone has any idea what had happened? Now I am afraid to restart under my internal HD with OS 9.2.8 since my External HD might not mount and will ask me to initalize it.
If anyone can shed some lights on this situation, I would appreciate very much.
Thomas

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